[Child of the 7th Age]

With Sorona's departure, Ráma had quickly gathered her belongings and led her mount towards the side entrance of the caves, a small opening that faced the desert. Already the sun was up. The young woman caught a distant glimpse of Sorona's majestic figure silhouetted against the clear morning sky. The Eagle circled once, then twice, and finally disappeared. Ráma wondered if she would ever see her again.

Ráma could not remember the Elders or her mother ever mentioning Sorona's name. That omission, in itself, was puzzling. She knew her mother kept a careful reckoning of all those within the clan who could take on Eagle shape. The fact that Sorona had not slipped back into human form during their conversation was also odd. Usual custom dictated that if one maenwaith threw off an animal form to converse more intimately with another, the companion would respond in kind, unless there was some pressing danger nearby to make such a shift unwise. But Sorona had made no attempt to change forms and had not even explained or apologized for this departure from normal practice. Ráma promised to ask her mother about Sorona after she reached her home.

For now, however, her mind remained on the trip. Ráma intended to leave immediately, since she had fulfilled her bargain with the two strangers from Gondor. She was still concerned about Thorn's absence, although it wasn't unusual for him to vanish unexpectedly if he was on the trail of an important tidbit of information. In any case, the strangers had probably sailed home on their vessel and were leagues away from the shores of Harad. Still, a nagging voice inside her head impelled her to check one last time at the entrance to the caverns that fronted directly on the city.

With a sigh of resignation, Ráma cut back through the interior of the Caves of Herumor and threaded her way along the maze towards the overhanging cliffs. But before she could even reach that point, she was greeted in the front passage by two familiar figures mounted on the same camels that she had left with Lena. Mithadan sat atop the beast with a grace that was unusual for an outsider; the other one, Airefalas, clung to his mount as if it was a ship tossed amid churning waves.

Rama's first reaction was disappointment. She wanted to get home and these two would only slow her down. She resolved to do her duty by the letter of her oath, but otherwise to have as little to do with them as she could. This is certainly the advice that Narika would have given her and the other Elders in the clan. Outsiders could not be trusted, and men from Gondor were as far outside Ráma's experience as any she had met. She approached the men warily, and did not even bother asking what had happened to their ship.

Turning towards the men, she dispensed with any word of greeting, and urged them to make haste, "We must leave immediately before the whole city is up. There was someone making inquiries at the Cat's Paw, and I have a feeling that Falasmir would not take kindly to seeing his two Gondorians fleeing from the city. I will take you west of Umbar, where we will find a friendly caravan that can guide you east and north towards the Harad Road. That will lead toward lands familiar to you. My own duty lies with my family. I must travel south and inland to the spot where my clan awaits."